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Dark Pit
Dark Pit
By haokai-xu-1999
View on ldjam.com
| Category | Rank | Score | Count |
|
|---|
| Overall | 207 | 3.26 | 34 | |
| Fun | 196 | 3.09 | 34 | |
| Innovation | 42 | 3.89 | 34 | |
| Theme | 192 | 3.35 | 34 | |
| Graphics | 239 | 2.95 | 34 | |
| Audio | 217 | 2.64 | 34 | |
| Humor | 143 | 2.75 | 32 | |
| Mood | 199 | 3.17 | 33 | |
Comments
swooty
2025-04-07 04:34
Editing this now that I played the working build:
This is such a cool game mechanic on display, particularly using the time pause for the sake of platforming is super neat. Very cool concept to build around
I think you executed on it pretty well! I really like how the lighting looks. And the limited single wall cling is a good choice
I think the biggest issue is how dark it is outside the flashlight. It's hard to see things coming, and often it is a surprise when a new beam hits my flashlight. Part of that is there's no feedback when something makes contact. I think a simple sound to indicate "stop" and "start" would go such a long way for the fun and good feeling controls.
Also there were situations where I lost flashlight contact with a beam because the camera moved and I failed to exactly match the mouse movement. It makes me wish the camera would stay still when I'm only doing small movements, especially because the character movement isn't super smooth. It adds difficulty but not in a way that feels challenging.
I can't imagine it's easy to solve in the given timeframe, a good polished camera controller takes time for sure. Even for something simple where it only follows you when you move towards the edge. But it def would have helped in those more precise moments
Kudos for putting together the graphics, I know you say you are not good at that. In this case I think the main issue is just the colors. Generally sticking to 1 or 2 colors is a cheap easy way to get a decent look, and for yours I think it would especially help visually and also to sell the mood / theme.
All in all, really awesome concept and foundation, you nailed everything with the flashlight. I hope you continue to work on it, add responsiveness to the gameplay. It's a solid basis for a game for sure
I just updated the Windows game file, it should work now, please check the game when you are free. Thanks very much for the notification!
Game worked for me, cool concept!
dnp
2025-04-07 14:30
Interesting gimmick for a platformer. It was very challenging and I didn't manage to get very far. I can't exactly pinpoint why, but the controls felt finnicky and unresponsive. I think it is too easy to get stuck under a pile of wood and really be able to make any progress. Otherwise, I like the concept.
@swooty The game works now! Please try it when you are free.
@dnp Thanks for your feedback!
I also stuck myself in the dead situation lots of times when do the testing. I guess this is the disadvantage of abuse of randomness, I believe the player experience would get better if I can refine the generation rule of the falling woods.
In this current version, if you like the game and want to get higher, I suggest you try to climb from the two sides, using the wall to bypass the fallen which might get you stuck.
Runs fine on Mac (once I overrode SIP in system settings -> Security). I like the idea behind the flashlight freezing moving objects. Not the easiest platformer, I fell many times!
atsh
2025-04-07 15:42
Very innovative idea, using the light as sort of time stop It took me some time to get used to it, and the fact that some platform were sloped so I think they only work once was a little confusing. I wonder if starting with horizontal platform was a better way to teach the idea BTW I think the graphics was kinda cute, especially the background and platforms
Awesome original idea! Love it!
swooty
2025-04-07 20:17
@haokai-xu-1999 Thanks for the ping! Enjoyed this a lot, updated with a review :)
Simple but effective, I love what you did to keep the room mysterious and playing with the lights! Sometimes hard, sometimes unforgiving, but it feels fair. I have to agree with what @atsh said, I'm not sure the rotated platforms are really needed. Nonetheless, thanks for making this !
@swooty Thanks very much for your comment! It's so nice of you to give this long and elaborate feedback, it really helps!
@tristam-macdonald @atsh @javasaurus I am glad you guys enjoyed the game! The unnecessary difficulty which gives frustration but not challenge is indeed an issue.
The idea of rotated platforms comes from the intention to make the game dynamic. However, now I realise that the generation strategy is not player friendly, introducing lots of cumbersome troubles for player movement. I guess a good solution might be only slightly rotate the platform, and allow the player to jump onto the platform from the bottom.
Thanks very much for your feedbacks!
@ricesteam I am glad you enjoyed it, thanks for your time!
I liked the concept. The graphics might not be impressive, but so what – this game provides an experience and keeps you hooked for a while, and that’s the key point in games. The only thing is that the darkness outside the light is really, really dark. Maybe if it were a bit lighter or if the outlines of objects were visible, it would improve the experience.
@ibandurist I am glad you enjoyed it!
At the beginning, I thought darkness is significant to enhance the feeling of "deep", which leads to an abuse of it. Now I realise that the darkness brings to much unnecessary trouble, and it might be a good idea to put some lamp on the wall.
Thanks for your comment!
k1n
2025-04-08 05:49
I liked the way I can manage platforms, but it would be nicer if flashlight has more FOV, overall is good.
@k1n I am glad you enjoyed it, and very good suggestion to improve the player experience!
foxecho
2025-04-08 14:35
Genuinely innovative—this feels like something that wasn’t easy to make. It was a bit hard for me to grasp at first, though. One challenge with unique mechanics is the learning curve they can create for players, but maybe that could be eased with more gradual level design. Still, creating something like this in just two days is super impressive. Keep it up! 加油！
@foxecho I am glad you enjoyed the game, and thanks for your suggestion about the difficulty level. After finishing this, I also realised my abuse of the randomness, which not only introduced unnecessary trouble to players, but also make the curve unpolished.
Thanks for your comment, it really helps with my design skill.
正要去玩你的作品，你也加油！
zirrrus
2025-04-08 16:45
Very interesting idea for the main mechanic, and really solid execution!
@zirrrus Thanks for your comments, I am glad you enjoyed it!
What an interesting idea! I wasn't able to get far - getting trapped pretty quickly by objects falling into my 'close ambient light area' and pinching me above/below - but I am absolutely intrigued by this kind of 'world freezes when you look' puzzle solving. Would love to see this idea worked more - maybe a way to make the planforms intangible or change the movement to allow more approaches to climbing - fascinating stuff. Great work!
Nice one, mechanic is really interesting. Kinda hard to play too, because obviously you can't really see the planks falling until you light them up. I do think some more polish would be nice. Also running to the right crashes the game: i know it's intended but that's still quite abrupt as i'm probably not the only one to have run right on my first playthrough. Overall nice entry!
I liked the concept / mechanic, though I think it would have felt better with a little pause on platforms falling again and if platforms were more often horizontal. Different falling speeds could have also been interesting, and I'd like more visibility of the dark sections. Visual effects are good though.
@ugly-robot I am glad you enjoyed the game! The trapping issue concerns lots of players, it's indeed a design mistake. The solution I came up with after noticing the problem is to make the platform one-way collision, always allowing the avatar to jump onto the platform from the bottom. In addition, a better well-deigned generation rule for the falling block helps.
Thanks very much for your comments, I hope I can refine the game according to your experience one day!
@thomas-bringer I am glad you enjoyed the game! The abuse of darkness, which was intended to emphasise the concept of "depths", is indeed a mistake. I should have considered more careful when it comes to player experience, maybe adding some lamp on the wall can help with the vision issue.
Thanks for your comments, it really helps for me to improve my design skills!
@jovialknoll I am glad you enjoyed the game, and thanks for your suggestions! Your words really hit the point, providing useful ways to improve the experience.
I hope I can refine the game according to you comments one day.
用光照来控制砖块掉落的机制超级有趣！喜欢，感觉是一个很有潜力的玩法。
除了用在平台跳跃游戏里，这个机制似乎也可以用在解谜游戏里？期待看到这个创意被玩出花来www
The mechanic of using light to control the falling of bricks is super interesting! I love it—it feels like a gameplay idea with a lot of potential.
Besides being used in platformer games, this mechanic seems like it could work well in puzzle games too? I’m looking forward to seeing all the creative ways this idea could be explored wwwww
@rubatotree I am glad you enjoyed the game, thanks for your comments! Hope I can expand the mechanics in the future. lol
正要去玩下你的游戏！
Nice concept, I liked it, maybe put dim light at the start to experiment with the power of the flash light at first!
scrawach
2025-04-09 20:06
Original mechanics with stopping blocks from falling. I loved it!
Hey! It is an interesting original mechanic that you was able to perform in a tough deadline. I believe it is a great accomplishment. Good job!
@barnabewild I am glad you enjoyed the game!
Very good suggestion, a clear introduction to the mechanics is lacked in the game, I should have started the game with a short tutorial.
Thanks for your comments!
@scrawach Thanks for playing it, I am glad you had a good time!
@mikeliosus Thanks for playing it, I hope I can expand the mechanics into something one day!
aynu
2025-04-10 06:14
This is good and I like the graphics. It is already 99% Indie game but if you add some more features it will be a top best seller all the best for your future jams!
@aynu I am glad you enjoyed the game, thanks for your encouragement!
Softlock the game. I really like the idea of the mechanic but there is quite a lot of things that make it rather frustrating.
Screenshot 2025-04-10 at 19.45.54.png
There is so much waiting for a potential block to appear and when you try to make a leap for it it's almost always just noping out and refusing to jump because I guess the platform was a degree too steep or while midair a bunch of other unwanted platforms rain on me and trap me forcing a total game restart.
Screenshot 2025-04-10 at 19.57.03.png
I guess having the light cone be more the thing that affects blocks stopping and not just being close to you being enough would help with the traps at least a bit as you could kinda untangle yourself with it. But at least having a restart option other than hard quitting the game would be nice.
Also was very though to estimate whether the angle of a platform was enough to walk on or if it would consume the wall jump. I think like 99% of my deaths were not really my fault due to these. And I think having the wall jump be once per platform instead of once per jump would feel so much better.
It looked pretty nice. The soundscape was a bit barren. Some more sounds and overall more variety would have been a welcome addition. Of course music too.
So yeah, with few kinda minor changes/fixes it would be a very fun score chasing game. Main thing being make the ground detection more reliable for jumping and somehow stop the softlock traps of falling platforms.
Couldn't manage to get higher than this...
Screenshot 2025-04-10 at 20.02.01.png
Anyways, good job! 👍
@antti-haavikko Thanks for your comments, you really hit the point! Much more work are required before the game turns into something player friendly, and I believe you suggestion boost this progress significantly.
I hope maybe I can expand the game into something one day, and thanks again for your elaborate comments, I will look back at it in the future.
torte478
2025-04-16 17:28
I really liked your interpretation of the theme—and the core mechanic is fascinating! The jumping is pretty challenging; I couldn’t score more than 280 points, I think. But if you polish this mechanic, it could turn into a really fun game. Also, loved the idea of the door being the game’s exit =)
@torte478 I am glad you enjoyed the game, I will polish the game and publish it on itch.io later!
Game looks cool. It has cool theme and atmosphere but also gameplay is fun to be honest
@online-play I am glad you enjoyed the game! I will polish it and publish it on itch.io later!